1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to artificial flowers and, more particularly, to such flowers comprised of a plurality of inflatable petals and/or inflatable multiple petal assemblies.
2. Description of Related Art
The beauty of real flowers has often been captured by artificial flowers made of such materials as silk, paper, glass, plastic, chocolate and the like. Sometimes, a plurality of tethered balloons made either of air-filled elastomeric envelopes or of helium-filled foil-seal-type envelopes are gathered in a bunch in an effort to simulate an artificial flower. However, such gas-filled envelopes have a generally spherical configuration and do not realistically duplicate the appearance of a flower. Also, gas-filled envelopes, particularly when made of elastomeric material such as rubber, have a limited lifetime as a result of gas diffusion through the rubber material. Such drawbacks have led away from the use of inflatable materials in the construction of artificial flowers.